Well, hobo month is over. It ended with a whimper. June 30th, I looked at my nice, ripe bank balance and then sat down to pay bills. Now we’re broke.
Crud.
How terribly anti-climatic. When I go through a long and somewhat difficult process, I want there to be a big payoff at the end. I wanted the month to end with “Wooo HOOOO! Kids! We’re going to Disneyland!” — or at least Dairy Queen. Instead I get, what? The warm glow of fiscal responsibility? Puke. That’s not good at all. Avoiding some vague, hypothetical negative consquence is so unsatisfying. It’s trying to make yourself floss every single day in order to NOT get gum disease at some random future date. Yawn. Give me the processes that require hard work and a little pain, sure, but with the big payoff. Like learning to ride your bike. Remember how hard that was? Remember the scraped calves and the face plants???? (More so for those of us who learned on a gravel driveway. I mean, seriously, there wasn’t a nice grassy slope somewhere?) But then, suddenly, you could ride!! Oh my lord, what a miracle! And for the next several years, that’s all you wanted to do—race your friends, ride slow and loopy figure eights, climb those hills and then coast down without touching the handlebars—“Look Ma, no hands!!” Sure there were spills, but the end result was HUGE. Hobo month, on the other hand, just disappeared like vapor; nothing has changed and it’s like it never happened at all.
Why are all my grown-up learning processes so boring? My friend likes to read me my “Real Astrology” horoscopes, but mostly I don’t like them at all. They all focus around those big life lessons and we know how I feel about those. Learning to be patient, to be less selfish, to delay gratification… well, they have the painful middle part down, but not so much on the pleasurable conclusion. Maybe that’s why I love cooking so much. Hmmm… I hadn’t thought about it, but it does satisfy my desire to try and learn new things and then- HOORAY!- there’s something yummy at the end. And that’s what I want, the yummy ending.
Of course, life has to go and stick it’s big, fat, stupid nose in there…because just when I get good and ready for a really satisfying prolonged whine (“Where is my yummy ending? I waaaant my yummy endiiiiing!!!!) I get called to the back of the eye clinic to talk to my daughter’s vision therapist. Turns out that she is a little concerned about Tigi’s motivation. Because, even though there have been some truly great improvements in her vision (It’s true! I hardly wanted to cry at all last time we tested her eyesight!) Tigi announced that she “…isn’t really excited about coming here anymore..” because it’s NOT FUN. So the therapist wants me to talk with her about how somethings are very important to work on, even if they don’t seem very exciting.
Whoah. Sometimes the Universe sends signs that are vague and at other times- WHAM!- it just hits you on the noggin with something so obvious that you have no other choice but to turn to the Universe and say; “Shut up, you!” (Stupid, know-it-all Universe.)
So, fine. If it were just me, I’d half-knowingly carry on, resenting all my grown-up lessons. But since my children are now involved and seemingly unable to understand the time honored concept of “do as I say, not as I do”, I have no choice but to clean up my act. At the very least, I can put on a happy face and pretend to enjoy my personal growth. This month’s project??? Confronting materialism and de-cluttering the house!
Oh, joy.
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